In part one of Seeding a Theme - A Teaching Seminar with Milton Erickson, you will witness Erickson seamlessly planting a seed, connecting the dots, developing a theme, and closing the loop in one class period. You will learn how Erickson conducted dissociation through the tempo, content and tone of his words.
The ability that Dr. Milton Erickson had for “reading the patient” and get information from them in order to build a context in which change was easy to obtain is an area that has been often overlooked due to the difficulty to understand the process that he was using. In what way was he carefully observing the patient to gain personal information from them? Several techniques will be listed and demonstrated in order to become an observant and strategic therapist.
The American novelist William Faulkner stated, "The Past is never dead. In fact, it is not even past." This presentation emphasizes the unconventional use of reality therapy that connects the past with the presents by helping clients realize that their current behaviors are normal responses to abnormal situations that they have experienced. It also operationalizes the Ericksonian principle: "The solution often appears unrelated to the problem."
Music within a hypnotherapy model functions as a catalyst accentuating the nuances of seeding, guiding associations, and deepening trance states. Participants will experience and practice how to musically transform mood states, utilize music creatively and effectively within a hypnotherapy session, and explore the latest research on the melody-mind-body link.
Participants are invited to explore and transform Ericksonian methods by creating meaningful associations to three cutting-edge conceptualizations. How the Principle of Uncertainty or of quantum potentials, for instance, is applicable to seeding & utilization; how Erickson’s existential philosophy is consistent with indicators of high Spiritual Intelligence (SQ), and how Rossi’s avant-garde proposals envelop all of them.
In the literature, music and drama, artists often covertly foreshadow impending events. In social psychology there are myriad studies of priming, an effect by which the accessibility of a future target is increased by the presentation of an earlier cue. Priming effects illuminate important facets of interpersonal responsiveness. Milton Erickson was the first therapist to seed future ideas in the course of strategic therapy and hypnosis. Seeding is an important concept that can increase the effectiveness of interventions regardless of the technique that will be used. We will learn to harness seeding methods through lecture, demonstration and practice.
In 1979, Milton Erickson and Jeffrey Zeig spent five hours reviewing a demonstration that Erickson conducted at a teaching seminar. That demonstration is now available as a training video for Ericksonian practitioners. Erickson’s experiential methods include the symbolic use of hypnotic phenomena, encouraging resistance, naturalistic confusion technique, seeding, and using isomorphic anecdotes. Jeffrey Zeig discusses the mechanics of Erickson’s unique approach to psychotherapy. Working with Resistance provides an opportunity to watch a master hypnotherapist demonstrate his technique.
This hypnotherapeutic session took place in 1978, and decades later, it’s just as powerful and engaging. Enhancing the viewer’s learning experience is Dr. Zeig’s discussion of the underlying elements of Erickson’s methods: the ARE model of instruction; the art of parallel communication; targeted utilization; and the use of implication. Erickson’s fluid repertoire, drawn from systematic thinking, includes the use of anecdotes, symbolic communication, and strategic seeding. The elicitation of solutions, based on promoting constructive associations and flexible thoughts and feelings, is an area of particular interest and one in which Erickson was especially elegant.